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User blog:Wassboss/Nice Guys Finish Last: Jonathan Joestar vs Ghastly Bespoke
When you're living in a world full of snarky assholes where everyone is a dick to everyone else it's refreshing to find a character whose just an all round nice person, despite the hardships they've faced. That's the theme of this battle with two warriors who are the two shining beacons of kindness in such cruel worlds. Despite suffering great pain in their lives these two still manage to be gentlemen and fight against evil to try and make the world a better place and make the ultimate sacrifice because of it. But just because these two are nice doesn't mean they'll be holding back their punches when it comes to a fight as; Jonathan Joestar: Heir to the Joestar Family Fortune, whose life was turned upside down by the arrival of Dio Brando. takes on Ghastly Bespoke: Tailor, boxer and war hero, cursed at birth to have a scarred face. Who is Deadliest Jonathan Joestar Jonathan Joestar 'had a relatively happy childhood, despite the death of his mother when he was just a baby. However this happy childhood came to an abrupt end with the arrival of Dio Brando, a boy adopted by Jonathan's father as a favour to a man who saved his life. He made his life a misery until Jonathan beat him up after DIO kissed his girlfriend Erina. Dio would later be thwarted in an assassination attempt on George Joestar by Jonathan and in desperation turned himself into a vampire with a mysterious stone mask. Jonathan then fought and seemingly killed Dio but would later find out he had survived and set out to kill his childhood rival once and for all, with the help of the mysterious Baron Zeppeli. '''Equipment ' * '''Luck & Pluck: '''After defeating the undead knight Bruford, Jonathan acquired his sword called Luck & Pluck. A standard broadsword Jonathan channels his Ripple through his sword in order to increases it's power and be able to fight opponents without having to get to close to them. '''Powers & Abilities * Ripple:' '''Known as Hamon in the east, Ripple is the usage of energy of sun rays through a special breathing technique which allows the user to harness solar energy as an attack. Mostly used as a way to combat the undead, Ripple will also cause a severe pins & needles feeling before fainting on a normal person. An object, while charged with Ripple energy, will become more dangerous, and its user can perform several techniques that can combine with the warrior's own tactics, to allow for a very flexible fighting style. The biggest weakness of this style is that the user must have controlled breathing in order to use Ripple and if the user cannot properly breathe (aka they were being choked) then it cannot be used. As a skilled Ripple user, Jonathan can use the following techniques; ** '''Sendo' Ripple Overdrive: 'Another usage of Overdrive is to channel the Ripple energy through the users arm to perform a powerful chop. This slowly transfers Ripple through the point hit, advancing until it blows up, with enough power to cut through solid bone. ** '''Zoom Punch: '''The Ripple user launches their fist forward and strikes their opponent. This attack involves a ripple breathing technique that dislocates and stretches the joints to extend the arm and give it greater reach while also using the same ripple to dull the pain caused by the move. ** '''Scarlet Overdrive: '''Jonathan charges his Ripple into one of his hands, creating a flame which can burn an opponent. ** '''Underwater Turquoise Blue Overdrive: '''Ripple is at it's most effective when channelled through liquid and therefore when used underwater Ripple is at it's most powerful. Jonathan can release high powered tempests while underwater with enough force to blast enemies away and drain a lake to waist-high deep. ** '''Sunlight Yellow Overdrive: '''Jonathan's most powerful Ripple technique. Jonathan delivers rapid flurry of Ripple-infused punches which has power comparable to the sun itself. Jonathan marks the attack by exclaiming "My heart resonates! The heat's enough to burn! The beat of my blood is razor-sharp". ** '''Healing: '''Ripple can also be used to heal the user to a certain extent. It can be used to eject poison from the bloodstream and heal broken bones with Jonathan once being able to heal his own broken neck. *'Superhuman Strength and Durability: 'I mean come on. Just look at this guy. He's a fucking man mountain. Jonathan is at the peak of human physicality and is strong enough to perform feats normal humans would find impossible. Some of these feats include; ripping through steel bars, managing to drag along 4 full grown men during a game of rugby, launching himself into the air with the strength in his arms alone and delivering punches which can stumble a giant undead knight. Jonathan is also incredibly durable able to shrug off blows from swords and bladed projectiles and even managing to survive falling from the top of a very tall mansion. Combined with his Hamon healing and incredible determination Jonathan is a hard to man to keep down. *'Skilled Hand to Hand combatant: '''Jonathan is also a very skilled unarmed fighter able to deliver a brutal beat-down to Dio (albeit before he became a vampire) and hold his own against undead zombies and vampires (including the aforementioned Dio when he became a vampire). Ghastly Bespoke Ghastly Bespoke is a tailor by trade and a close friend of Skulduggery. When his mother was pregnant with him she was jinxed and as a result he was born with scars that covered his entire head, making integration into normal society almost impossible. As a child, Ghastly told his friends that his mother was a tailor and his father was the boxer - but it was the other way round, with his mother being a famous boxer with a 23 consecutive win streak while his father enjoyed sowing making adjustments to hemlines and all that. '''Equipment *'Sword:' All of the dead men carry a sword with them into combat. While the exact specifications are not known for the sake of comparison it is assumed that it is roughly 2 feet long. The blade is incredibly sharp, able to lop off limbs and heads with ease. *'Gauntlet:' Originally mages went into battle with a sword and shield but this was impractical as it left them with no free hand to use their magic and thus they created an arm length gauntlet, reaching from the shoulder all the way down to the wrist. This Gauntlet is able to block Cleaver Blades, which are made from an incredibly sharp material able to slice through skin and bone. Powers and Abilities *'Skilled Elemental Magic User: ' Ghastly is an elemental, meaning his magic focuses on control of the elements . The elements and some of their uses are listed below; **'Fire:' The flashiest and most used of the four elements. Elemental sorcerers create fire by generating friction, usually the snapping of fingers, and use it for various purposes. These include creating fireballs, creating barriers of fire, expelling fire in a flamethrower type stream and fireballs can be focused into more concentrated flames which can be used to cut and carve. **'Air:' Air magic is the most versatile and, at times, the most powerful of the four elements. Air magic is the easiest to learn with most sorcerers learning this first. Uses of Air magic includes pushing and pulling towards or away from the sorcerer, squeezing and crushing objects, holding a person in place, creating a powerful wall of air to block an attacker, creation of whirlwinds, reading disturbances in the air, depriving people of air, containing an explosion within a sphere of air and can be used to buff up a users punching power by encasing their fists with a layer of air ** Earth: Earth magic was at first, and for a very long time, thought to be last resort defensive magic. However it has since been shown to have some offensive prowess as well. The main use of earth magic is to turn the user into an unbreakable stone statue but the length of this transformation is unpredictable and could last any length of time, from a couple of years to several centuries. **'Water:' Water is the most rarely used out of the four elements . When the user is submerged in water, water manipulation can be used in a similar way to air manipulation. Uses of Water magic includes walking on water, enhancing swimming ability, firing a stream of water as a projectile, creating a wall of water, manipulating water vapour in the air to create small rainstorms and the manipulation of ice or snow. * Skilled Hand to Hand Combatant: Trained from an early age by his boxer mother, Ghastly is one of the most powerful hand to hand fighters in the skulduggery pleasant universe. He can fight multiple skilled mages at once, once being able to take down six sorcerers single-handedly. He was also the only member of the main cast able to fight on par with the assassin Tesseract, a mage who defeated four exceptionally skilled mages (which included Skulduggery, Valkyrie and Ravel) single-handedly. *'Superhuman Strength and Durability:' Ghastly is a stocky man and as such as displayed feats that a are above the standard capabilities of a normal person. He can knock a person out with a single punch, choke hold someone into unconsciousness in a matter of seconds,carry a full grown person without struggle. Ghastly is also incredibly resilient, able to survive a bomb blast at close range and punch a steel mask without injury. X Factors Physicality: Jonathan=90/Ghastly=85 Both of these men are in peak physical condition even before you take into account their respective magical disciplines which boost their physical capabilities even further. However Jonathan's physical feats border more on a superhuman level whereas Ghastly is more at the peak of what a normal human can achieve so Jonathan gets a slight edge. Experience: Jonathan=60/Ghastly=85 Ghastly takes a massive edge here. Being over 400 years old, Ghastly has seen his fair share of combat including a centuries long war and a number of adventures both before and after said war. Admittedly he did settle down to become a tailor and later an elder after the war but still often finds himself dragged into combat against powerful mages and monsters. Jonathan on the other hand has about a week of actual combat experience and while this is against vampires, zombies and other undead creatures it's far shorter. Brutality: Jonathan=65/Ghastly=70 While both Jonathan and Ghastly are more than willing to use lethal force against evildoers and the undead both are more forgiving against human opponents and rarely aim to kill their opponent. However because Jonathan actively tries to not badly injure his opponents as well as not killing them, as seen in the battle against the Ogre Street Thugs his rating is slightly lower than Ghastly, who will still inflict a brutal and crippling beat-down to an opponent. Voting System/Notes Battle takes place in Knight's Landing. Battle takes place at some point between Jonathan beating Dio and getting married to Erina. In the Skulduggery timeline this takes place around the same time as Phantom Blood with Ghastly still part of the Dead Men during the war. In order to be counted in full, votes must be at least 5 lines long or have been done in an edge format. Anything less than 5 lines but which is competently argued and thought out will be counted as a half vote. I will inform anybody if their vote is considered a half vote and allow them to amend it to bring it up to a full point. Irrelevant votes will not be counted at all. I reserve the right to award a vote as half or discount it entirely for reason not mentioned here if I feel it is applicable. Battle After the events of the previous night the small village of Windknight’s Lot is grimly quiet, as the residents mourn the loss of family members and try to wrap their heads around the horror they have seen. All they want is for the peacefulness of their everyday life to return but the sun begins to dip in the sky it appears peacefulness is not what they are going to get. A rather bedraggled looking man rushes up the one road into the village; tall, with sparkling green eyes, short black hair and wearing a torn and tattered suit with a thick glove on his right hand. This man is Nefarain Serpine, one of Mevolent’s three generals and he is running for his life. He looks around wildly for somewhere to hide but the open fields provide no cover and he presses on towards the actual village himself, hoping he can find someone to hide him there. “That blasted skeleton and his scarred friend, why can’t they just give me a moments rest,” he mutters to himself. “Just a few more years, when the truce has been ironed out and agreed, they’ll have no choice but to let me go free.” Caught up in his mutterings and still scanning the area for somewhere to hide he doesn’t notice the man in the road until it is too late and he smacks into him and falls to the ground. “Watch where you’re going moron,” he says angrily, glaring up at the man who looks at him with concern. “There is no need to be rude,” he says calmly and extends his hand to help Serpine up. “Are you okay, you seem to be troubled?” “Ah yes, my apologies, I shouldn’t have been so terse,” Serpine says, sensing he might be able to get this man to help him. “I am in a bit of trouble actually, I’m being chased by some very evil men, they want to arrest me for a crime I did not commit.” “That sounds terrible. Perhaps I could help you straighten things out with them.” “No, no, no. These men are quite unreasonable, I fear it would just lead to us both getting arrested.” Serpine hears the sound of hoof steps approaching and looks back as two men, with scarves wrapped around their faces approach. Panicking now he puts the stranger in between him and the men. “That’s them,” he says pointing. “Get away from him young man,” one of the men says. “He’s a very dangerous criminal.” “He says he has been wrongly accused,” the stranger says. “Well he would say that wouldn’t he,” the man replies. The stranger eyes them both with suspicion. “Why are you faces covered?” he asks. “Because it’s chilly out,” the man says sarcastically. “But since we’re asking questions who even are you to decide if this man is telling the truth?” “My name is Jonathan Joestar. It is true I cannot say if he is lying or not but when two men who hide their faces come chasing after a man dishevelled and scared my instinct is to mistrust them.” The other man, who has so far stayed silent, starts forward on his horse. “We don’t have time for this, so get out of the way boy or there will be trouble.” He uses his horse to try and barge Jonathan out of the way but he grabs the reins to stop him. As he looks up at the man, Jonathan sees the scarf dislodge slightly, revealing an open eye socket. He reaches up suddenly and snatches the scarf off, revealing the man to be a skeleton. “Good god,” Jonathan says horrified. Skulduggery tries to go for Serpine but Jonathan yanks him from his horse, throwing him to the ground. “It seems we didn’t get all of Dio’s minions after all” he says, drawing Pluck from its scabbard. A sudden gust of air knocks him away as the other scarfed man dismounts from his horse, hands splayed out in front of him. Serpine takes the opportunity to jump onto the spare horse, riding off towards the town to make his escape. “Skulduggery! You go after Serpine, I’ll deal with the kid,” Ghastly shouts. Skulduggery nods to him, jumps on Ghastly’s horse and gives chase. Ghastly watches as Jonathan picks himself off the ground. Taking in a deep breath he rushes at Ghastly, Pluck held aloft and brimming with Hamon energy. Ghastly splays his hands out again to send forth another gust of wind which hits Jonathan head on. To his utter amazement, rather than being pushed back by the gust, Jonathan stands strong against it, digging his feet into the ground as the magic flows past him. Once the attack passes, he throws himself forward, catching Ghastly totally off guard and almost burying Pluck into his shoulder. Fortunately, Ghastly manages to block the swing with his gauntlet and with his free hand, draws his own sword. Jonathan presses him aggressively, forcing Ghastly on the defensive, blocking blows with either his gauntlet or sword. Still the force of the blows are strong and he can feel his arms begin to grow tired from all the defending. The blazing yellow the sword is bathed in is also a cause for concern especially when the sword nicks his hand and he feels a buzzing sensation. “You know kid, you don’t have to do this.” “I won’t stop until the influence of Dio is banished from this world!” Jonathan cries defiantly. His words seem to lend him strength to his blows and with an almighty swing he smashes the sword out of Ghastly’s hand, leaving him weaponless and vulnerable. Another powerful chop knocks Ghastly to the ground despite him blocking it with his gauntlet. Standing over him, Jonathan lifts Pluck over his head, ready to bring it down on his downed opponent but Ghastly snaps his fingers, creating a fireball in his hand and flinging it towards him. Jonathan leans back as the scorching ball of flames whooshes past his face and Ghastly sweeps his legs out from underneath him with a kick. He then flicks his hand and Pluck is wrenched from Jonathan’s grip and sent flying into some nearby bushes. As Jonathan gets to his feet, Ghastly closes in, slamming punches into him with his right hand. Apart from a quiet grunt of discomfort the punches seem to have little effect however and Jonathan takes a deep breath, channelling his Hamon. He steps back, momentarily out of the reach of Ghastly’s fists and before he can close the distance let’s out a cry of “ZOOM PUNCH”. His arm launches forward, extending much further than his normal reach and strikes Ghastly right on the chin. The punch itself does little harm him, it’s not the first or the last time he’ll be punched in the face but something feels wrong. He feels lightheaded, as if he has been out in the sun too long but the feeling quickly dissipates. Before he can figure out what the hell just happened Jonathan presses forward with his attack. Ghastly settles into a defensive stance, blocking the incoming punches with his forearms. When the opportunity arises, he hits back with a punch of his own but none of them seem to be having an effect on the Englishman. Ghastly meanwhile, can feel himself getting more sluggish and a blow he should’ve blocked sneaks through, catching him in the chest. He grimaces but still keeps up his guard, now too cautious to try and throw punches of his own. As Jonathan’s fist raps against his gauntlet he sees sparks fly peaking his interest. Looking more carefully at Jonathan he can see a glow around his body, a less potent version of the glow that was enveloping his sword earlier. Clearly, he’s using some sort of magic to enhance his fighting style and Ghastly notices him breath in unusually and the glow grows brighter still. “Breathing. It’s something to do with his breathing.” Ghastly thinks to himself. He can feel some more movement returning to his body and decides to test out his theory. As Jonathan comes in with another punch, he clasps his arm with his gauntlet. This opens up the space for him to deliver a punch to the gut. Jonathan splutters as the blow connects and the glow around him weakens but the punch that struck the gauntlet has already charged it with Hamon energy. Ghastly feels his left arm go numb and quickly wrenches the gauntlet off to try and alleviate the effect. “My heart resonates! The heat’s enough to burn! The beat of my blood is razor-sharp!” Jonathan exclaims, having used the distraction to regain control of his breathing. “SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE” he shouts as he unleashes his ultimate attack, pummelling Ghastly with Hamon infused punches and finishing off the move with an uppercut that launches the dead man through the air. Ghastly lands hard on the stone road, groaning loudly. He tries to get up but the Hamon coursing through his body saps his energy and the best he can do is pull himself up into a sitting position. Jonathan strides over to him, charging up more Hamon into his hand to perform the final blow which will knock his opponent unconscious. Before he can get close enough, Ghastly raises his hand and Jonathan suddenly feels the air rush out of his lungs. Gasping to get more breath he cannot, almost as if he is caught in a vacuum. Ghastly gets to his feet gingerly, still suffering from the effects of the overdrive. “Looks like you can’t use that magic of yours without an air source,” he says. As the feeling begins to return to his arms and legs, he walks carefully up to Jonathan who is now more concerned with not suffocating rather than using his Hamon. Gathering up the air in his other hand he encases his fist with it and drives a punch into Jonathan’s face, knocking him to the floor. This has the inadvertent effect of allowing him to regain his breath and he leaps up with a roar, arm swinging at Ghastly. The blow connects solidly with his shoulder but the disruption to his breathing means that the Hamon barely does anything. Ghastly doesn’t let his attack go unchallenged and drives another punch into Jonathan’s stomach, winding him once again. Pressing his advantage, he delivers two jabs which rock the Joestar’s head back and, gathering the air around his fist once more, delivers the coup de grâce, an uppercut right in the sweep spot, which knocks Jonathan out. As his opponent lies unconscious on the floor Ghastly hunches over, breathing heavily from the fight and still recovered from the Hamon’s effect on his body. He hears the sound of hooves and looks over to see Skulduggery riding towards him, a second horse being lead along next to him. He dismounts as he approaches and walks over to Ghastly. “Serpine?” he asks. “Got away,” Skulduggery says his voice hard. “By the time I’d caught up to him he’d stolen a boat from a fisherman and rowed off. I found the man’s body nearby, not a mark on him, obviously a victim of the right red hand.” He looks over at the unconscious body of Jonathan and draws his revolver, lifting him up and pressing the barrel against his head. “Woah there Skull,” Ghastly says. “What the hell are you doing.” “It’s this idiot’s fault that Serpine got away. Who knows how many people he’ll go on to kill?” “Killing him won’t solve anything,” Ghastly says. “It’ll make me feel a lot better,” Skulduggery says coldly. Ghastly grabs his friend’s arm. “Look. He’s just a kid, he didn’t know about Serpine or who he was. I know you’re angry, I know how much you want to avenge your family. I felt the same way about Lord Vile after he killed my mother. But killing an innocent person isn’t the answer. We’re not like Serpine.” A long silence follows and Ghastly begins to worry his words aren’t having any effect until Skulduggery lowers his gun. “You’re right Ghastly,” he says the anger gone from his voice. “About the kid. I let my anger get the better of me. Serpine is still out there and we need to find him.” Ghastly claps his arm around his shoulder and leads him back to the horses, leaving Jonathan in the road where he’ll wake up with a splitting headache and an interesting story to tell. Winner: Ghastly Bespoke Final Verdict Ghastly won because of his magic being more effective. His air and fire magic gave him ranged attacks which Jonathan had little defence against and the fact he can use air magic to deprive someone of oxygen meant he could easily disable Jonathan’s Hamon once he figured out how it worked. His wealth of experience also helped him in this regard with his over 400 years of combat experience being vastly more useful than the couple of nights Jonathan spent fighting Dio and his minions. Category:Blog posts